Search:techno machine

New Jackson marks his long awaited follow-up to 2017’s From Night To Night with its successor OOPS!... POP for long-time collaborators Permanent Vacation. A concise triumph in techno pop, its 9 tracks elevate his signature electronic sounds into anthemic new heights.
David Kitt is a prolific sonic polymath who’s enjoyed a colourful career making whatever he likes.
While releasing music under a vast array of aliases and collaborations for close to two and a half decades, New Jackson has remained his irregular home since 2011 for when ‘at one with the machines’. It offers a kaleidoscopic window into his love of dance music, and on his debut album under the alias From Night To Night (released in 2017 on Dublin’s All City label) he unfurled his singular vision; a dilated suite of nocturnal soul coaxed from his beloved electronic equipment with songwriter’s nous, sonically etched as blunted whispers coalesced from the dusky billows of Dublin bay. Further EPs and singles followed, alongside a beloved live show he toured globally, plus detours with his critically-lauded Garies duo (with Lumigraph) and a David Kitt solo album.
In the time since his New Jackson debut, he’s slowly distilled his studio methodology to help mine the true core of his musical self. Within this experimentation, he has stumbled upon the bounty that is OOPS!... POP, his most direct and euphoric body of work to date. Recorded across the span of five years and three different countries, Kitt has managed to transform his beloved alias into a leaner beast, tightening the screws around arrangements and songwriting to inspire an album sonically effortless in demeanour and spontaneously playful in structure and form. Aided by a stacked cast of collaborators including Rita Lynn, Donnacha Costello, Riche “Jape” Egan, Yenkee, Kean Kavanagh, Margie Jean Lewis, Meg Cronin and Fehdah, it bears the hallmarks of the studio albums of yesteryear in its dynamism and gratification while drawing on his rich bouquet of influences across a century of recorded music.
Opener SI SI SI lulls you in with its smothered vocoder’d croons and patient groove, BURNT DEEP next yields a surprising deep house turn, lit gently with casual hedonism. LIKE rewires the playbook entirely, shuffling along its minimal 80’s boogie groove with a cheeky grin, before lead single OUT OF REACH further mines the golden pastures with its glorious stuttering techno power-pop fit with that anthemic chorus. DAY IN SHOCK digi-dubs around the wonderful vocal turn of Fehdah in purest heads-down manner, then THE OK HOLE and STROBE both descend the psychedelic wormhole of anaesthetised breaks and electro with its entranced dancefloor gaze. I WANNA BE ADORED, the Madchester anthem from The Stone Roses, is then surprisingly reimagined as a lost kraut-pop robo sung classic while WITH THE NIGHT AT OUR FEET is our climactic conclusion, a mechanised symphony of dual proportions; a humane core of angelic harmonies chugging along in electro rhythm before soaring strings take us on our way.
New Jackson’s oeuvre, indeed David Kitt’s musical world, is vast; OOPS!... POP then might just be his opus across it all, a towering achievement of soaring catharsis in melody and song that soundtracks the most direct transmissions from his heart to yours

2024 REPRESSED !!

Crash Course in Science are a post punk band that formed in 1979 in Philadelphia.The band members, Dale Feliciello, Mallory Yago and Michael Zodorozny, met while attending art school. They began to experiment with crude electronics and off-beat writing. CCIS avoids conventional instrumentation by using toy instruments and kitchen appliances to augment the distorted guitar, drums and synthesized beats.Their first single, 'Cakes in the Home' was released in 1979 and their 4-song 12'' EP ''Signals From Pier Thirteen'' in 1981. Pier 13 was an abandoned coal-loading pier along the Delaware River near where CCIS rehearsed. The band went there often and was inspired by the huge silent machinery, shapes, shadows, ghosts and debris. The songs 'Cardboard Lamb' and 'Flying Turns' quickly became club favorites during the early 80's. This EP's raw, percussive sound influenced both techno and industrial music in later years. CCIS feel a strong connection to Throbbing Gristle, although they consider themselves as working in a parallel universe rather than being influenced by them. All songs have been remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. The vinyl is housed in the original jacket featuring stark black and white photos of Pier 13. Each LP includes a double sided 11x11 insert with lyrics, photos of the band and the atmospheric pier. Crash Course in Science go above and beyond what is considered 'New Wave' in attitude and sound.

Khôra is the medium Matthew Ramolo uses to delve deeply into initiatory world-building by way of sound, image, and lyrical prose. Figuring wholly realized art-myths which distill and rouse the numinous while provoking the visceral and cathartic, Khôra intricately collages studio documents of ritualized instrumental performances, introducing overdubs by transient, heteronymic personae which dismantle stable points of reference in the music and open uncommon planes of consciousness.

"Gestures of Perception" is Khôra’s first double album with a supporting artbook and features a fascinating array of sources subjected to patterned assembly, poetic layering, and the elevations of the heart. Deft handling of modular synthesis is palpably central, while feedback, erhu, keys, flute, contact electronics, guitar, field sounds, and various percussion objects (rattle and frame drums, seed pod sticks, random metal objects, meditation bowls, kalimbas, bells) all serve to provide breathing structures and energetic contours that guide and scaffold inner and outer journeys into the far-near. Prominent across the record's span is a home-built, solenoid drum machine, responsible for the alive and askew techno-archaic flows and conceived as the album’s "rhythm seed”. The music on Gestures is teeming with organic and alien textures, soaring drones, inter-dimensional noises, and emotionally resonant melodies; balanced on the fringes of exotica and meditative trance, with capacities that untether the listener from the ballast of limited reality.

Operating hermetically in the penumbra of Toronto's cultural scene for well over a decade, Khôra has been invested in self-publishing handcrafted editions of spiritually driven recordings which led to the LP/CD reissue of inaugural album "Silent Your Body Is Endless" by Constellation. Khôra has toured extensively in North America and Europe both solo and in collaboration with Picastro, Nick Kuepfer (Hrsta,1/4 Tonne), and Brandon Valdivia (Mas Aya, Lido Pimienta), generated over a hundred hours of unreleased, bewildering drone through durational performance with experimental outfit Nidus (Marc Couroux, Jason Doell), composed for live dance and independent film, been commissioned by MaerzMusik, and seeded and co-run the now defunct music and art venue Ratio in Toronto.

The genesis of ACID BODY MUSIC, MODULHATER's second album, took place in the anxiety-inducing atmosphere of the first confinement.

Like an outlet for the injunction to keep quiet, MODULHATER produce 10 tracks with ACID, EBM and INDUSTRIAL influences that are both explosive and raging, rigorous and cathartic analogue techno strongly influenced by the pioneers of DETROIT or the late 80s atmosphere of the NEW BEAT / EBM scene, vintage synthesizers and drum machines roar, hypnotic basslines thump, MODULHATER takes us into a dystopian universe where the dancefloor drowned in strobes is populated by cyborgs.

Sev Dah delivers dreamy string-work and funky percussive techno with crunchy stab-driving beats.

Anybody asked for faster and harder? Then you are about to be surprised with Sev Dah's approach on PROLETARIJAT012!'Azici 89' is setting the direction into dreamy string-work and funky percussion, followed by crunchy stab-driving tight beats on 'Makac'.On the flip side is a collaboration between him and his daughters, where old rusty drum machines meet three playful minds on 'Singing Like'.'Tamic' is completing the 12th release in known manners à la Sev - straight forward, dusty and shaky!

When we started playing music together in 1997, we could spend a lot of time on each individual track. It would mutate, go through many phases, until we’d get to the point when we’d decide to capture it and mix it on the fly.

Twenty-five years later, we changed gears. This album was produced across a two year period, during several sessions in our studio (the third member of the band), following this process: we plug the machines, we start a musical conversation, we press record when it gets interesting.

In the studio, that moment always comes, when a fragile and magical balance happens. That’s when we record, usually in one take, sometimes all in the same stereo channel, the computer sitting in a corner, its presence not interfering with our ears.

La Folie Studio is the fruit of this process.

Let’s get numerologistic with this new age reactionary-philosophic strategy manifesto:

Playing electronic music, whether alone or not, must be joyous, funky, and make you feelgood.

The studio is not a sanctuary but a place of life. Technology must not be intimidating.

Welcoming friends and new objects in the studio should be an infinite source of inspiration.

If nothing happens in the studio, turn off the light and play a percussion record.

Techno heads of all ages need something more spontaneous and freer than little thumbnails shared on a pocket computer. Château Flight offers a musical experience carved on grooves.

With 25 years of experience, Château Flight can cure all your musical ills, instantly and painlessly.

The key to success: midi sync + din syc + external trigs.

2024 Repress

Steve Rachmad's richly melodic strain of techno has resulted in a huge body of work he has been growing since the early 90s. His sound is the perfect distillation of machine soul - dubby atmospherics and crisp, danceable dynamics balanced in perfect unison. Amsterdam's Delsin Records gathers together some of the Dutch techno figurehead's most important, sought-after works in a new EP series, all remastered from the original DAT tapes from Steve's archives. His flagship Sterac project is present - most notably the Asphyx EP, with a long-standing titling mistake now rectified on the iconic 'X-Tracks' comes first. Four absolute classic Sterac works dating from 1995. The Delsin Sterac series will focus on long-awaited represses and hard-to-find deep cuts from the Rachmad archives. Adding to the weight of this series, the accompanying artwork is being created by Boris Tellegen, aka legendary graffiti artist Delta who first began designing sleeves with Secret Life Of Machines. Since then he created many works for labels including Delsin.

tapetopia 006 In 1983, some more subdued sounds began to waft from the GDR punk underground into the second half of the ’80s. At five to the end of time, it was perpetually striking midnight and the occasional punk band would mix a little laudanum into their potential for aggression. Portents in this vein preceded a dark wave whose foamy crest would break on fog walls of dry ice. Especially in Leipzig and East Berlin, a chain-rattling zeitgeist produced bands that drew from a dark well. Many of these bands arose from the still hot or already cold ashes of punk. The two founding fathers of Neuntage Alt, René Glofke and Taymur Streng (nicknamed “Strangler”), knew each other from the East Berlin punk scene. The third man aboard, Mike Sauer, played drums in the early 1980s for Sendeschluß, a punk band that, lost in thought somewhere in the no-man’s land between punk and post-punk, faded away in 1984. Punk was no longer the order of the day, but it was a form of expression among many and easy to combine. Glofke and Streng found common ground in experimental set-ups with such otherworldly names as Medusa Brahma or Die zeitweilige Erscheinung.
From this far-flung point of departure, a short tunnel led straight into the black light of Neuntage Alt, the coldest star in the low-hanging sky above East Berlin. Neuntage Alt appeared at the end of 1986, during the last blackout phase of the GDR, on the threshold between the underground and the so-called “other bands” – a scene that used the non-socio-critical approach of German Wutwave (“anger wave”) in order to be allowed to perform publicly. In the context of this scene, Neuntage Alt did not belong to the inner circle. Moreover, the band’s subcultural base was initially in Mahlsdorf, on the south-eastern edge of East Berlin. This was where the DIY sound studio of amplitude apostle and great modulator Taymur Streng was situated. Strangler held the position of house electrician and keyboard god in various projects. One of them had the bland alias Mahlsdorfer Wohnstuben Orchester, behind which the avant-garde court chapel of the bungalow studio was concealed. There Taymur also conspired with the East Berlin underground band Ornament & Verbrechen (tapetopia #001). Ronald Lippok of Ornament & Verbrechen remembers how once, at the opening of a joint session, he and his brother Robert attended Taymur’s engaging slide show of his collection of test patterns. Afterwards, they created a piece with the psychedelic title “Das sentimentale UfO”, which sheds an iridescent light on the bizarre atmosphere in the studio. Taymur’s obsession with technology was legendary. The home studio was also his living space; a circuit, a machine park of screwed and soldered equipment, a single keyboard orgy. His own creations were also based on circuit diagrams found in the radio amateur magazine “Funkamateur”. Its somewhat clueless subtitle “Praktische Elektronik Für Alle” (Practical Electronics for All)

Introducing the forthcoming vinyl single from FJAAK's highly anticipated album, "FJAAK THE SYSTEM." Featuring three electrifying stompers and an exclusive acapella track tailored for DJ tool usage, this release promises to captivate techno enthusiasts and vinyl aficionados alike. First up, "A1 - Redemption" unleashes an ancient acid-techno anthem, pulsating with acidic elements and an unmistakable old-school vibe. Its hard-hitting beats and minimalist structure reflect the chaotic state of our world's system, while sporadic vocal shots weave a narrative of societal disarray, urging listeners to delve into the madness. Next, "A2 - Hustle" encapsulates the relentless journey of artists striving to leave their mark in the world of music. With pulsating futuristic breakbeats and driving rhythms, the track embodies the dedication and passion fueling their creative pursuits, amidst the challenges of the road and the vibrant energy of the techno scene. Then, "B1 - Mechanic Love" delves into the intricate dynamics of relationships in a technologically infused world. Exploring the blurred boundaries between humans, machines, and cyborgs, the track navigates themes of love, intimacy, and companionship within a futuristic realm where humanity's evolution converges with technological innovation. It's a symphony of emotion and machinery, inviting listeners to ponder the complexities of existence. Lastly "B2 - Unity" featuring US artist Red Eye, the vinyl single includes an exclusive acapella version of a track featured on the upcoming album, providing DJs with a versatile tool for creative mixing and experimentation.

MASK’s ZentaSkai & Laura Merino Allue announce vinyl-only underground house and techno series as Cuddling Monsters.
Cuddling Monsters serve up the first vinyl-only volume of a new self titled series on Berlin-based Mask Records. All four cuts explore deep and classy techno, dub and house soundscapes with the aim of rediscovering the soul of electronic music and forming new bonds between human creativity and technological innovations.
Cuddling Monsters is the coming together of creative partners ZentaSkai and Laura Merino Allue. ZentaSkai is the MASK founder recognised for his immersive, hypnotic groove, and Allue is a fashion and graphic designer. They are newly assembled under this alias but have a long-time love of vinyl and analogue machines, which shows in their sounds.
"Crafting music with analogue instruments holds profound importance in the contemporary musical landscape. Despite the omnipresence of digital technology, analogue instruments maintain a pivotal role, offering distinctive sonic qualities, creative constraints, and genuine sound reproduction. The tactile, hands-on connection." - Cuddling Monsters The superbly deep and atmospheric 'Lucky Star' is a dubby minimal cut with a deft rhythm and warm pads that are perfect for cosy back rooms. The absorbing 'Crystal Growing' is another stripped-back techno roller with rubbery drums and pensive chords that lock you into a state of meditation. Up next is the powerful 'Floating Tank' which pairs gorgeous ambient synths with driving drums. It's a great coming together of the physical and the emotional that will take dance floors to the next level. 'Analog Dreams' shuts down with more perfectly smoky pads and grainy lo-fi atmospheres as slick but driving drums power onwards.

Monika Enterprise welcomes a new act to her roster with Berlin based experimental pop duo Post Neo releasing their new EP. Individually known as Nicole Luján and Pauline Weh, both musicians pursued their own solo projects before forming the duo Post Neo. On “Alles Immer Wieder” they combine as more than the sum of their parts to produce 5 songs of dark and powerful experimental avant- pop which is released as an exclusive 10” vinyl.

Pauline and Nicole met making music in Berlin during the summer of 2019 and kept collaborating online, until Nicole moved to Berlin in 2022. The musicians' different musical backgrounds result in diverse intuitions which complement each other perfectly when producing tracks together - Nicole was more into synthesis and electronic music production in Mexico City while Pauline received a classical piano education in Munich before she started doing electronic music.

In 2022 they released their first EP, «do you?», which consists of five tracks that were composed and produced as an inter-continental project between Berlin and Mexico City. In autumn of that year Post Neo received a residency at Sternhagen Gut from Musicboard Berlin where they caught the ear of monika head Gudrun Gut who was so taken with their compelling mix of techno beats and dreamy melancholic atmospheres she immediately signed them to her label.

The EP’s opening and title track “Alles Immer Wieder” (trans. Everything again and again) is a reflection on repetition and monotony as transcendence in the form of sleep, dreams, work and other daily cycles. The rhythmic juxtapositions and tempo shifts make for a captivating opening track. “Ganz Schön Was Los” (trans. A lot happening) has a proper synthwave electro pop vibe while the vocals lend a little light hearted humanity to the otherwise calculated computer music aesthetic. With its fusion of synthesizers and drum machines track B1 “Die Verwirrung” (trans. The confusion) brings a sense of melancholic doom. The flow of B2 “Wenn Wir Wüssten” (trans. If we knew what would happen) is a future-focused reflection on the unidirectional movement of time's arrow. Sampled harmonies and instrumental breakdowns make it possibly the most emotive track on the EP. And the record comes to a close with “Dreh dich” (trans. Turn around) which lures us in with delicate vocals before menacing synthesizer sounds blast us into oblivion. It is an invitation to turn the record over and start listening from the beginning again.

Post Neo’s music is steeped in minimalism: at once managing to be hugely expressive and evocative while still retaining a sense of privacy and mystery for the listener to decrypt. Like all great pop music their songs are musically captivating while also conveying a strong message. As their band name suggests, Post Neo are essentially futuristic and with live shows at some of Berlin’s hottest underground venues under their belt as well as in their hometowns of Munich and Mexico City, plus the release of „Alles Immer Wieder“ in 2024, great things are in store for the electronic pop duo.

Drawing from minimal krautrock repetition, pounding industrial techno and EBM, Lisbon trio MAQUINA.

(‘Machine’) explore the boundaries of these genres with force on their second album ‘PRATA’ (‘Silver’). Live: 04/05 – Effenaar, Eindhoven, NL @ Fuzz Club Festival 2024. Limited Splatter LP.

DRIFT. Is British-Italian producer Nathalia Bruno, releasing music under the guise since 2015. Her 'techno-pop' EPs 'Black Devotion' and 'Genderland' released with Avant! records were the first explorations in finding the sound of DRIFT. but as the name suggests, is in constant flux. In 2020 'Symbiosis' the debut record was released on Hamburg's Tapete Records, an assemblage of lo-fi futurism reflecting on the breakdown of communication and interaction Nathalia felt was increasing around her. Channelling classic industrial electronica, haunting melodies, using samples, field recordings and curated sound as a 'canvas to rewire the vision of the future as colourful and old, ceremonial and rust beaten. A shrine like ornament and clinical machine language plaited together.'. In 2022 DRIFT. Self released 'The nature of things', a 30 minute piece entitled 'CTRL/ Algorhythm of love' written and produced for designer Mona Cordes' 'Cellusion' show for London fashion week. "_a journey into the dark heart of the dancefloor. The glimmering bass-heavy trance of its opening section could be classic Underworld, while its ambient center is genuinely Eno-esque. And then it all kicks off again as a Berlin school style banger. It's terrific" says Electronic Sound Magazine. This year, 2023 will give birth to DRIFT.'s second album released with God Unknown records '11 points In Time' written for and based on disappeared artist Rosi Crucci, compiled of sounds/field recordings recorded onto cassettes found in the attic of the home she last lived at, interpreted into song using some of her poetry and journal entries of what was happening in the world around her, attempting to finally give Rosi a voice. PRESS Louder Than War album review 'Symbiosis' (2020) "...blends passion with precision to create a tapestry of machine-made sounds that are bursting with ideas and filled with emotion. "We live in times where nothing means nothing," she sings on Visualise The Invisible. "And nothing is true." Never more so than now...Over the course of its ten tracks, Symbiosis draws from pretty much every strand of electronic music throughout its 50-year history" Shindig Magazine review 'Symbiosis' 2020 "A brilliant, fascinating album" Post Punk Magazine review 'Symbiosis' 2020 "is an exercise in disjointed meditation, a trip through the doors of the spirit lodge and inner workings of the human psyche." Pop Matters Review 'Symbiosis' 2020 "...One track in particular, "In Orbit", speaks to this new disturbing unknown we are creating. A distorted, three-note death knell drives it as repeated knocking seems to come from a dank tunnel. If it sounds bleak, it's likely also to be therapeutic and finds common ground with the entrancing industrial thud of Throbbing Gristle or Third Eye Foundation..."

HAVEN are proud to present the second record in their black label series focused on the crossover between sounds on the UK bass music spectrum and hard techno dynamics. This time UK break-beat maestro Mani Festo joins the label for the first time with an EP of hardcore-
inspired dance-floor weaponry alongside a remix from Swedish experimentalist PederMannerfelt.

The A side kicks off with 'Hunterr' with booming vocal cuts, pounding 4-4 kicks and break-beat rhythms sprinkled throughout for a prime UK hardcore and techno genre crossover slab of club material. This is followed by the Peder Mannerfelt remix where the Swedish legend brings his left-of-field sensibilities to the fore, submerging the vocals in to a ghostly high-frequency spectrum whisper alongside a looping bass-line and sludgy drum rhythms to close out the first side.

The B side starts with 'Swarmm' - a broken beat roller filled with screeching synth zaps and a mammoth break-beat in the second half. Up next comes 'Poison' with its eerie atmospheres and drones sat behind a 4-4 rhythm and charging break-beats in another dance-floor killer. Finally 'Machine' closes the EP with its syncopated electro rhythms and funky UK swing alongside chugging bass plucks and arpeggiated melodies in one more crossover hammer.

Most audiophiles know Alan Parsons Project's I Robot by heart. Engineered by Parsons after he performed the same duties on Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, the 1977 record reigns as a disc whose taut bass, crisp highs, clean production, and seemingly limitless dynamic range are matched only by the sensational prog-rock fare helmed by the keyboardist and his creative partner, Eric Woolfson. Not surprisingly, it's been issued myriad times. Can it be improved? Relish Mobile Fidelity's stupendous UltraDisc One-Step 180g 33RPM box set and the question becomes moot.


Mastered from the original master tapes and pressed at RTI on MoFi SuperVinyl, I Robot comes to life with reference-setting realism on this numbered, limited-edition reissue. Boasting immaculate highs and lows, generous spaciousness, and see-through transparency that takes you into the studio with Parsons and Woolfson at Abbey Road, this definitive edition is designed to demonstrate the full-range capabilities of the world's best stereo systems while offering listeners the convenience of having all the music on one LP.

Featuring a nearly inaudible noise floor, this transcendent UD1S edition functions as a repeat invitation to savor reference-grade soundstages, immersive smoothness, sought-after instrumental separation, three-dimensional imaging, and consummate tonal balances. Able to be played back at high volumes without compromise or fatigue, it is a demonstration record for the ages – the likes of which are no longer being made. This is the very reason you own and invest in high-end audio gear.

The special characteristics of this UD1S version extend to the premium packaging. Housed in an elegant slipcase, the reissue features special foil-stamped jackets and faithful-to-the-original graphics. Aurally and visually, it is made for discerning listeners who prize sound quality and production, and who desire to fully immerse themselves in everything about this conceptual landmark. The Alan Parsons Project's most famous record deserves nothing less.

Inspired by and loosely based around the Isaac Asimov stories of the same name, I Robot delves into themes of artificial intelligence and technological dominance that make the record extremely relevant in the 21st century. Indeed, Parsons and Woolfson's pinnacle creation dovetailed with the ascendency of Star Wars, which itself is experiencing a rebirth in an age of self-driving cars, smart devices, and mindless automation. Lyrically, songs such as "The Voice" call into question human behavior – and their relationship to increasing robotic supremacy – in everyday life. Parsons and Woolfson reflect the associated paranoia, dichotomy, and transformation via shifting sci-fi arrangements steeped in drama and moodiness.

The absorbing tunes on I Robot also continue to fascinate due to their perfectionism and innovation. Borrowing from Pink Floyd's strategies, Parsons and Woolfson utilize a looped sequence on the title track to create new downbeats. "Some Other Time" employs two different lead vocalists and yet gives the illusion that only one is involved. Captivating strings, a piccolo trumpet, and bona fide pipe organ grace "Don't Let It Show." The origins of "Nucleus" stem from a unique analog keyboard concoction dubbed "the Projectron," devised by Parsons and electronic engineer Keith Johnson. Andrew Powell's orchestral and choral arrangements top it all off, with "Total Eclipse" arriving as a frightening track that presages the climactic "Genesis Ch. 1 V. 32."

Does man or machine win in the end? Decide as you get lost in Mobile Fidelity's UltraDisc 180g 33RPM LP pressing. Secure your numbered copy today!

More About Mobile Fidelity UltraDisc One-Step and Why It Is Superior
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab's UltraDisc One-Step (UD1S) technique bypasses generational losses inherent to the traditional three-step plating process by removing two steps: the production of father and mother plates, which are created to yield numerous stampers from each lacquer that is cut. For UD1S plating, stampers (also called "converts") are made directly from the lacquers. Since each lacquer yields only one stamper, multiple lacquers need to be cut. Mobile Fidelity's UD1S process produces a final LP with the lowest-possible noise floor. The removal of two steps of the plating process also reveals musical details and dynamics that would otherwise be lost due to the standard multi-step process. With UD1S, every aspect of vinyl production is optimized to produce the best-sounding vinyl album available today.

MoFi SuperVinyl

Developed by NEOTECH and RTI, MoFi SuperVinyl is the most exacting-to-specification vinyl compound ever devised. Analogue lovers have never seen (or heard) anything like it. Extraordinarily expensive and extremely painstaking to produce, the special proprietary compound addresses two specific areas of improvement: noise floor reduction and enhanced groove definition. The vinyl composition features a new carbonless dye (hold the disc up to the light and see) and produces the world's quietest surfaces. This high-definition formula also allows for the creation of cleaner grooves that are indistinguishable from the original lacquer. MoFi SuperVinyl provides the closest approximation of what the label's engineers hear in the mastering lab.

After their highly praised debut record "I" - called "a sparkling electro-jazz and cinematographic hybridization game" and "refreshingly futuristic big band music" - the french quintet returns with the new full length called "II". Notilus is back, more raw and free than ever, taking a journey through both evening shadows and luminous mornings, through long expanses of suspended time as well as hypnotic swathes of dancing vibes. It crosses vast tundras, ascends snowy mountain ranges, reaches swampy troubled waters bathed in eerie light, at the crossroad between Jazz, Techno, Ambient music and self-reflexion.

The Notilus Orchestration:
Philippe Rieger : machines
Mathieu Goust : drums & percussions
Guillaume Nuss : trombone & effets
Christophe Rieger : saxophone & effets
Paul Barbieri : cornet, synthétiseurs

Except from Rachid Taha, who allowed himself a few forays into the teeming, vibrant heaths of techno, no raï singer other than Cheb Malik has ever ventured into this terrain known for its abundance of sound. If you know about Malik Adouane's ancestry, this is hardly surprising. Born in Librecourt, near Lens, he comes from a union between an Italo-Celtic mother who instilled Western sounds into his ears and a father, a former miner born in Biskra (north-east Algeria), a palm grove near the desert, musically renowned for its lively diwan that could be called Saharan opera. In addition, the town is renowned for its chakhchouka, a dish called after its rich blend of various ingredients and spices. Just like Malik’s music, as he was a fan of James Brown, Barry White, classical Arabic and raï music. He had been thinking about it from the beginning, but the dream took a long time to materialize. In January 1986, many raï idols turned up in Bobigny, France, for a historic and seminal festival. In the midst of the audience, the young man, dressed in black leather, provided security for the concerts of many stars before becoming one himself. He would rub his eyes, not because he was dazzled, but because they were clouded by a nostalgia that remained him of itself. So, with his head full of sounds warmly recommended by the best DJs, he set out, a little provocatively, to position himself at the cutting edge of music with a new concept called "After raï". It combined the sweet and precious past with an almost uncontrollable creative audacity. It's a balm made in a test-tube-studio from a mix of Arabic melodies and lyrics - a kind of "Arabeat", and the arrogant modernity produced by samplers, electronic spinning, roaring bass and guitars made for house music. The pinnacle of the record is a masterful cover of Isaac Hayes' Shaft, which set dancefloors on fire in Paris, London, Ibiza and New York, and became internationally known thanks to its presence on a Paris Dernière compilation curated by French musician and DJ Béatrice Ardisson along with Claude Challe's iconic Buddha Bar series. Now, shall we dance?

Brixton-based David Agrella returns after the success of his Baby Ford-remixed 'Modulo 02', with two tracks and a nifty remix of each to boot. 'I Felt It Coming' is a heady peak time track, with Underground Resistance-style drum machine handclaps and an addictive synth hook and all the suspense and drama of a Stephen King horror tale. Domenico Rosa's remix turns that frown upside down, converting it into a perky, cheeky and altogether lighter workout that nevertheless will keep feet on the dancefloor. 'Reflexion Nocturna' (Priori remix) kicks off the B-side with fizzling dub techno stealth, subtly embellished with a smidgeon of 'Funky Drummer' breakbeat, while Agrella's original closes proceedings with head down, echo-set Leftfield-style prog house skank. Not for nothing is this chap known as one of the techno scene's fastest rising new names.

Hot wiring dancefloors with their immersive orchestration of uplifting sonic waves, Soft Crash sets out to soundtrack the unified, euphoric heartbeat of the crowds they foster with their mechanical yet fantastical, Italo Body Music. Presenting their highly anticipated EP ‘NRG’, the Berlin-based collaborative project of Berghain resident and BITE label head Hayden Payne (aka Phase Fatale) and French prolific producer Pablo Bozzi works to forge Soft Crash’s unique vocabulary of post-humanist production with the harmonic grandeur of their rhythmic, machine-made anthems.

Fresh off the back of their 2022 debut album ‘Your Last Everything’, Soft Crash present their latest 4 track EP ‘NRG’, chronicling their synonymous surrealist visuals infused with the contagious punch of Italo and Synth-wave. Geared towards the dancefloor from a fresh perspective, Bozzi and Payne pull from their respective wheelhouses to curate a sound additionally influenced by Wave-Pop, Acid House and Post-Punk sensibilities.

Procuring their cerebral yet zealous indentation of dance music, the EP features sanguine vocals from Kyiv-based singer and musician Ready in LED on the first single ‘Free Yourself’. She comments about the track “I became captivated instantly with the idea of the track that Hayden and Pablo sent me. At that moment, I was a bit tired of carefree disco and wanted to reveal my dark side in music. The demo sounded very daring. This track demands attention to itself from the first seconds. My sources of inspiration were glam rock and grunge. I had a blast in the studio, and I hope the people on the dance floors will feel that energy too.”

While full throttle vitality and booming grooves on the title track ‘NRG’ showcase Soft Crash’s take on 90’s sample-filled techno. Closing the extended play with an updated cut of the bewitching ‘Your Last Everything’, featuring Canadian musician and producer Marie Davidson, Soft Crash breathe a new life into the namesake track from their preceding album, concluding with an additional remix of the track by cult favourite producer Alen Skanner. The intrinsic dance floor vigour emulated in NRG further fleshes-out the pair’s recognisable DNA of nurturing a revitalised techno sound, cementing them as pioneers of the Italo Body genre.

Written and produced by Hayden Payne & Pablo Bozzi
Mastered by Conor Dalton at Glowcast Mastering

The newly reborn Danish label, tech-nology, is reintroducing itsfirst two releases.
Tech-nology is thrilled to reintroduce the world to the groundbreaking debut releases from 2003.

This was the first release on the label bearing the title "RedSector" and catapulted tech-nology into the music scene with adistinctive blend of warm, raw, and captivating machine funk, fusing elements of techno and electroclash. The title track"Valyom" reach third place on Ricardo Villalobos' chart, while"Echo Dreams" became an enduring electro classic.

Hailing from Belgium, Valyom, also known as Filip Vandendriessche, had already left a strong mark on the music landscape under the moniker DJ Valium. He had previously released with the German label International DJ Gigolo Records and emerged as one of the first Belgian artists to contribute tothe Detroit sound with releases on Teknotika Records.

Filip Vandendriessche has been a fixture on record labels and event flyers since the early '90s when, fueled by his passion for dance music, he co-founded the UFO parties in the western provinces of Belgium. These early gatherings laid the foundation for a global journey that took him to some of the most iconic underground parties labels worldwide.

Tech-nology is proud that Valyom was the first artist to be released on the label.

Red is also the colour of love!

2024 Repress

Steve Rachmad's subliminal debut album 'Secret Life Of Machines' was originally released way back in 1995. In 2012 the album was re-issued, although three tracks didn't make it to the vinyl re-issue. Now ten years later this new EP now re-issues also these three tracks after all: 'Satyricon', 'Hydroxy' and 'Draghixia'. Steve Rachmad's richly melodic strain of techno has resulted in a huge body of work he has been growing since the early 90s. His sound is the perfect distillation of machine soul - dubby atmospherics and crisp, danceable dynamics balanced in perfect unison. Amsterdam's Delsin Records gathers together some of the Dutch techno figurehead's most important, sought-after works in a new EP series, all remastered from the original DAT tapes from Steve's archives. Adding to the weight of this series, the accompanying artwork is being created by Boris Tellegen, aka legendary graffiti artist Delta who first began designing sleeves with Secret Life Of Machines. Since then he created many works for labels including Delsin.

What the listener might encounter on this album goes all the way down to the sound of a neuron transmitting pain, beatitude or any one of the countless senses and impressions we feel on any one day of life. N E U R O is the debut album by CURA MACHINES, a new project by Daniel Lea whose tracks are at once scientific in their capturing of the morphing of body cells as well as the larger expanses of a poetic filmscape of the contemporary metropolis.

The name CURA MACHINES comes from a sign Lea saw on a trip to Ancona, Italy at an abandoned hospital: Prima E Dopo La Cura (Before and after the cure). The sound in between, of what was lost or found, transmuted in the heavily manipulated and pulsating synthesisers, is the restoration here. With a physically visceral mix by Ben Frost and soaring re-amped bass textures from Yair Elazar Glotman, the album is lush with trans-morphing apeggia that shudder, quack and soar into ashen sparks.

Back in the turn of the 20th century the poet Rilke posited that the suture patterns of fused skull plates could potentially be played by the then-new technology of the gramophone, with each of us having our own personal tonal source code or anthem etched onto our skulls. And with a track like 'Suture' we have such an embodied sound: the close-up exhumation of the neural brain casing, stitched and sewn together in fleeting pulses of whisper and alarm.
The individual is exposed and isolated, but not without the promise of succour.

Or one also has the soundtrack to the loneliness of a morose private eye – a pulp novel set in a future time of neurosis or washed out euphoric beauty. It is here in tracks such as 'Terminal Zone' or 'Inversion Layers', music that is blinking in celluloid frames. The plot could easily be a sci-fi, paranoid tale of brain emulation, transhumanist crimes against humanity itself. After all this is Lea's soundtrack to Los Angeles, the city of angels that has been captured in countless movies: the racing tracking shot of the 2nd Street Tunnel at night, the freeways spreading out in a glorious sprawl of lit up veins and arteries. The last track 'Zosa' marks out the boundary line that delineates between day and night, when the lunar strains wane, the tides subside and the city comes to life.

A pioneer of the home recording movement, Linda Smith released several collections of delicate, bewitching solo music on cassette in the 1980s and 90s. The 2021 release of Till Another Time: 1988-1996, Captured Tracks' compilation of Smith's work, has helped bestow rightful critical acclaim to the ahead-of-her-time artist. Now, Captured Tracks dives deeper into Smith's catalog with the release of two full-length companion albums, Nothing Else Matters and I So Liked Spring, available for the first time on vinyl & streaming formats. Recorded at Smith's home in Baltimore in 1995, Nothing Else Matters chronicles the tension between the mundanity of daily life and the creative impulse: Traffic noises on the charmingly boisterous "Little To Be Won" showcase this levity, as does the addition of playful hand claps and a laugh track to her striking cover of Young Marble Giants' "Salad Days." I So Liked Spring, recorded the following year, saw Smith experimenting with the unique challenge of putting another artist's words to music. She'd come across a biography of the English poet Charlotte Mew and found her wistful poetry rife for musical interpretation. The songs on I So Liked Spring are delightfully unpredictable, full of upbeat melodies and spellbinding vocal harmonies. This is perhaps best showcased on the title track, one of Smith's most popular songs to date, a lovelorn anthem that recalls the airy melodies of early dream pop. Both of these albums showcase the mesmerizing charm of Smith's songwriting, often compared to the likes of the Velvet Underground and Laurie Anderson. Home recording technology has come a long way since Smith first began recording demos on her tape machine, but her influence reverberates through the work of today's bedroom artists. The release of these two essential albums seeks to further illuminate this connection, welcoming a new generation of listeners to the work of this trailblazing artist.

A pioneer of the home recording movement, Linda Smith released several collections of delicate, bewitching solo music on cassette in the 1980s and 90s. The 2021 release of Till Another Time: 1988-1996, Captured Tracks' compilation of Smith's work, has helped bestow rightful critical acclaim to the ahead-of-her-time artist. Now, Captured Tracks dives deeper into Smith's catalog with the release of two full-length companion albums, Nothing Else Matters and I So Liked Spring, available for the first time on vinyl & streaming formats. Recorded at Smith's home in Baltimore in 1995, Nothing Else Matters chronicles the tension between the mundanity of daily life and the creative impulse: Traffic noises on the charmingly boisterous "Little To Be Won" showcase this levity, as does the addition of playful hand claps and a laugh track to her striking cover of Young Marble Giants' "Salad Days." I So Liked Spring, recorded the following year, saw Smith experimenting with the unique challenge of putting another artist's words to music. She'd come across a biography of the English poet Charlotte Mew and found her wistful poetry rife for musical interpretation. The songs on I So Liked Spring are delightfully unpredictable, full of upbeat melodies and spellbinding vocal harmonies. This is perhaps best showcased on the title track, one of Smith's most popular songs to date, a lovelorn anthem that recalls the airy melodies of early dream pop. Both of these albums showcase the mesmerizing charm of Smith's songwriting, often compared to the likes of the Velvet Underground and Laurie Anderson. Home recording technology has come a long way since Smith first began recording demos on her tape machine, but her influence reverberates through the work of today's bedroom artists. The release of these two essential albums seeks to further illuminate this connection, welcoming a new generation of listeners to the work of this trailblazing artist.

Hailing from Brittany, historical center of France's industrial scene and in close proximity to Belgium's infamous rave and EBM innovations, Ekors set out to deliberately blacken and burn the sophisticated sounds emanating from Paris. With releases on Amsterdam's harsh Leyla imprint, fellow French hardcore iconoclast Umwelt's Flesh or Die, and JoeFarr's User Experience, the trio undoubtedly made their name in their lonely redoubt in the timberland, and Rant & Rave is honored to host their theme EP, Forest Killers, as our fifth release.

'Woodchip' conjures nightmares of dead bodies run through a woodchipper rather than more pastoral scenes, its distorted kicks, bone-crushing bass and blasted-apart leads chopping air and anyone unlucky enough to stand in its way. Title track 'Forest Killers' is murderous, the lurching breakbeat and shrapnel percussion approaching like axe falls ever closer until the horror score melody enters, then accelerating frantically as the killers close in. 'Evil Sapp' only seems subdued in comparison, its hammering techno pulse providing scant breathing room as industrial machinery fells nearby trees. Self-explanatory 'Chainsaw Requiem' ups the discomfort as the titular tool buzzes overhead, more Texas Chainsaw Massacre than weekend warrior woodpile work. Amidst squalling leads, ricocheting percussion, fearful blasts of noise, and pounding bass and kicks, Ekors escort us out of the haunted wood, sighs of relief and evil laughs joining in chorus.

Although 30 years after its birth this fundamental electronic gem called 'Reflections' has achieved cult status, it is worth remembering that it all started in 1993 in a small apartment in Waterloo, London, with the help of a mixer and a bunch of hardware synth and drum machines of hardware, with the mastodontic Oberheim OB-8 synthesizer as the main partner.

While in the UK the vast majority of kids showed a certain rejection of what came from North America in the form of electro, Kirk Degiorgio, under his alias As One, embraced it openly and incorporated it into his productions along with influences from other genres that he had already adored since he was young, such as jazz, soul or funk, thus becoming one of the true early adopters of Detroit techno in the UK.

If we look back, 'Reflections' is a challenge in itself, and even more so considering what the consumption pattern of electronic music was in the early 90s. This timeless album fits into the delicate border between being enough club to work on the dance floor, and still being musical and cerebral enough to be listened to at home. A milestone that, whether premeditated or not, Degiorgio more than achieved.

Three decades later Lapsus Records has been able to access the pre-masters extracted from the original DATs to build a special 30th anniversary edition within its Perennial series. For the occasion, this reissue not only offers the tracks included in the first edition, it also adds the songs 'The Priestess' –never released on vinyl before– and Forgotten Memory –until now unreleased and rediscovered in one of the DATs dating back to 1992 from the 'Reflexions' recording sessions. We are therefore facing the definitive edition of an album that, despite coexisting with the explosion of the rave movement, would pave the path for the UK-Detroit connection.

The first release on Hogart features 4 hot re-edits by talanted swedish producer who prefers to be anonymous.

A1 is a fiery Detroit techno track with that Chic acapella mixed to devestating effect.
A2 takes the ol AGCG Voodoo track to a diffrent planet ! Live bass, rhodes and enough compression to kill a horse.
B1 goes all in on the classic 303 machine, deep as the trench ! also got that huge BM acapella mixed on top.
B2 is that 90s piano anthem in a totally new version ! also got pieces of the festival killer "Coma" in there.
This release is limited to 300 orange vinyls only.

The king is dead, long live the king, as they say - except in this case the late king is DJ Bone's legendary Subject Detroit label, which has now been shuttered after 25 years, and the newly anointed king is his new outlet Further, taken from his Amsterdam parties of the same name. It kicks off with a pair of new EPs on the same day and this is the first from Yeti Mind Tricks. 'We Ain't Like Them' is a hammering Motor City techno cut for the peak time which Bone remixes into a more stripped-back but no less edgy and potent cut. On the flip are 'Bimini Road' and 'Vandelay,' both of which bring stylish techno drenched in machine soul.

For the first time, Brandt Brauer Frick’s seminal album Mr. Machine is being reissued on coloured vinyl.

‘Mr. Machine’ is a record that put them alongside names as Steve Reich and Philip Glass, but with considerably more groove. More than anything, Daniel, Jan and Paul are keen that the Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble are not written off as a curiosity.

“Often people focus a lot on this whole "cross-over" aspect,” says Brauer. “We wish people would simply notice we have good chords, melodies etc. and take the music as it is. Because we make it the way we feel, and not for other, let's say purely conceptual reasons. Some only seem interested in how it’s made. Some reviewers perceive us as minimal techno, some as modern classical, some as nu jazz and so on. But we don’t divide the world into techno and nontechno.”

Co-Accused Records kick off 2024 with some sonic grooves from French duo Human Rebellion. Their 'Kosmik Trip EP' has four spacey, electro cuts with wicked remixes from Sync 24 & Co-Accused.

Human Rebellion launch the EP with the title track 'Kosmik Trip' a mind-bending intergalactic destroyer. Sync 24s remix sees the trip take a dark turn with sinister vocals and hypnotic builds. Co-Accused take it into techno territory with a relentless, high energy take on the original. 'Censored Truth' opens the portal to the B side with free-radical synths intertwining with dark machine funk. The punchy drums in 'Hybridization' pull you towards a distress beacon, with face-hugging builds and chest bursting drops. Human Rebellion round off the release with the dystopian, driving sounds of 'Jupiterians'

The second album by F.K. Raeithel, just after the operetta DIE WURLITZERORGEL DES GEISTES, explores the realms of interlocked rhythm sample and hold music. On 16 tracks different setups of self generating modular synthesizer patches are gathered on this release.

The concept of Dance With Uncertainty is deeply rooted in philosophical, artistic, and cultural traditions. The notion of embracing uncertainty and change has been explored in various forms throughout history, often symbolizing the human experience and the impermanence of life. In the context of music and sound, Dance With Uncertainty could be seen as a reflection of the constant ebb and flow of life‘s uncertainties, captured and conveyed through sonic textures and evolving compositions.

Interlocked Rhythm Sample & Hold Music, this approach to sound creation weaves a mesmerizing tapestry of rhythm, texture, and sonic exploration, captivating listeners and defying traditional musical boundaries. At its core, Interlocked Rhythm Sample & Hold Music is a synthesis of technology, creativity, and a deep understanding of rhythmic intricacies. The foundation lies in the Sample & Hold circuit, a device that captures and freezes incoming voltages, creating distinct musical snapshots that evolve over time or an Linear Feedback Shift Register (eg. Rungler), a circuit used in electronic music synthesis and sound manipulation to create unique and evolving musical textures. The Rungler was created by Rob Hordijk. A more sophisticated use of a 8 bit shift register and by combining this with a typical sequencer design is the Klee Sequencer developed by Scott Stites. A cheap version of this design is the Turing Machine. Another tool is the Analog Shift Register. In the context of creating arabesque melodies, an analog shift register (invented by Fukushi Kawakami and later adapted by Serge Tcherepnin) can be a fascinating tool to generate intricate and ornamented musical patterns. Yet, it‘s the interlocking of these snapshots that sets this genre apart, infusing the compositions with an intricate dance of patterns and pulses. A fourth device is a pendulum or random addressed sequencer, that in the first case moves in a drunken unpredictable manner. Each of these devices for uncertainty becomes a rhythmic sculptor, freezing the dynamic interplay of melodies, beats, and textures. These frozen moments are then interwoven, each snapshot forming a unique thread in a sound tableau that stretches and contracts, pulses and breathes. The result is an auditory experience that challenges preconceptions of rhythm and structure. The interlocked rhythms give rise to complex grooves that ebb and flow in unpredictable ways, evoking a sense of perpetual motion and transformation. The music becomes a living organism, its heartbeats synchronized yet untamed, its evolution both deliberate and free-spirited. The juxtaposition of staccato bursts and fluid flows, of machine-like precision and organic unpredictability. As listeners delve into the world of Interlocked Rhythmic Sample & Hold Music, they embark on a sonic odyssey. The music becomes a companion, guiding them through a labyrinth of rhythmic landscapes that simultaneously challenge and invite them to the dance with uncertainty.

Taken from the Clone Records Sonic Transmutations compilation the trippy ''Darkheart Energy'' by Orlando Voorn in his Frequency guise comes in the original instrumental and 3 remixes from Marcal, the Lady Machine and our own Lenson! 3 different heavyweight techno bunker interpretations, all worthy of the Repetitive Rhythm stamp.

Gladio Operations label presents its ninth release, with volume 2 of the Split Machine series, which this time features two new and recognised faces on the European and American electro scene.

One of these new faces is producer Noamm. This Greek artist, who has releases on such respected labels as Bass Agenda and Fundamental Records, opens the EP with “Clone Machine” and “Scientific Technological Device”, two excellent rough and pragmatic tracks which link perfectly with “Verruckter Wissenschaftler”. The latter track, a fast-paced cut impregnated with tasty dark textures, perfectly defines the talent of the Hellenic producer.

The B-side bears the signature of Brice Kelly, who also debuts on Gladio Operations and gifts us three fantastic, enveloping, and melodic tracks. The American producer kicks off with “Beings of Alpha”, a deep and very well-constructed journey that gives way to “If You Don’t Think Like Us”.

We really like it, even more so if it is accompanied by an elegant vocoder and enigmatic strings. Lastly, we arrive at “Powers That Be”, the closing track of the album, where we can perceive a cut of aggressive bass lines and gloomy textures, well aligned with well-chosen robotic vocals.

WRWTFWW Records is happy to announce the first-ever physical release of Louisiana-based composer and producer Jammin’ Sam Miller’s full HD re-creation/restoration of the beloved Super Metroid video game soundtrack. The limited biovinyl double LP is packed with 27 tracks and features an exclusive artwork by French illustrator Pierre Thyss, as well as an obi strip.

Composed by Kenji Yamamoto and Minako Hamano, the soundtrack for 1994 SNES exploration / action-adventure / sci-fi / alien video game Super Metroid has always been a fan-favorite. A true masterclass in music storytelling, it beautifully evokes the epic and eerie adventure of the game’s protagonist Samus Aran with superb use of atmospheric sounds, space-operatic arrangements, rumbling bass, oppressive techno-futurist moods, tribal drums, and airy synth themes, admirably balancing the ominous feel of a dark menace and contemplative, even soothing, ambient soundscapes.

Jammin' Sam Miller assiduously recreated the soundtrack note by note, by finding the original equipment used to create it, translating the MIDI into a modern studio context, adding in keyboard samples, and re-mixing and re-mastering the whole score. He explains: "This was made possible by locating the original instrument samples from workstation keyboards and drum machines before they were put into the game and rebuilding the soundtrack from the ground up, applying some modern mixing techniques along the way to lift the veil of 16bit compression and create an updated listening experience."

Super Metroid is pressed on biovinyl, a sustainable alternative to traditional vinyl. Biovinyl replaces petroleum in S-PVC by recycling used cooking oil or industrial waste gases, resulting in 100% CO2 savings in bio-based S-PVC production. Furthermore, it is 100% recyclable and reusable, embracing the circular economy ideology.

Warehouse find!

With '100% Dope' we find Central Processing Unit bringing up their hundredth catalogue number, and you'd struggle to find a more fitting artist to ring in a century of releases for the label than Cygnus. The one born Phillip Washington has been with CPU since the very beginning, his 2012 LP 'Newmark Phase' representing the first record ever released on the imprint. That album's combination of textured techno and grizzly Drexciyan electro set the tone for CPU perfectly, and it's no surprise that Cygnus has returned to the Sheffield imprint several times down the years.

While '100% Dope' is an expert demonstration of what Cygnus and CPU do, this EP also shows just how much both artist and label have grown over the past nine years. At its heart '100% Dope' is a set of prime machine-funk from a master of the form, but these are also some of the most daring and innovative tracks that Cygnus has ever produced.

Take opening cut 'Bad RGB Controller'. In the undulating synth lines we have a ghost of grime as well as Drexciyan drive, and as such the track reminds one as much of Mr. Mitch or Last Japan as it does, say, Dopplereffekt. Furthermore, 'Bad RGB Controller' shifts gear around the halfway mark into a highwire electronica mode which has the wit and spark of prime Bogdan Raczynski. Entries like 'Float Back To The Surface' are similarly unpredictable. There's some lovely industrial techno bite to this one - the snare drum will echo in your head long after the party's died down - but Cygnus periodically pulls out the rug from underneath us with passages of impressionistic texture that almost border on sound art.

'Float Back To The Surface' is one of a trio of vocoder-led jams here. On 'Throwing Shade' we hear I-F and Egyptian Lover, with Cygnus' vocals clattering around like pronouncements from some funked-out robot overlord atop hissing-piston drums. Then there's the enticingly-titled 'CPU Records'. 'CPU Records' delivers all the crisp electro snap we've come to expect from a record emblazoned with that signature black-and-white artwork, yet this thing is also widescreen and cinematic in ways that demonstrate the maturation of the Cygnus sound. With a wicked vocoder vocal that celebrates the label's many achievements, 'CPU Records' is a victory lap tune if ever we've heard one.

Central Processing Unit keep it 100 on for this new EP. '100% Dope' by Cygnus is CPU's 100th catalogue number, and the Texan producer delivers on the promise of the record's title with a collection of brilliantly unique electro joints.

Repress!

HI-LO returns to Adam Beyer’s label for a sharp new outing ‘WANNA GO BANG’. The new track comes almost a year on from his energetic Drumcode debut ‘Hypnos’, which was followed by his remix of Adam Beyer & DJ Rush’s ‘Restore My Soul’. Oliver Heldens’ techno alias HI-LO has been building steam over the last 12 months, remixing Nina Kraviz’s ‘Skyscrapers’, sharing line-ups with everyone from Erol Alkan to PanPot and Enrico Sangiuliano on the world’s biggest stages, while also collaborating with Reinier Zonneveld, Eli Brown, and Space 92. All the while he’s kept in contact with Beyer, a sophomore offering on Drumcode always on the cards. ‘WANNA GO BANG’ is a high-powered Chicago-influenced weapon, that takes its vocal from the DJ Deeon classic ‘2 B Free’. HI-LO’s cut sees the vocal combine with a volley of drums throughout the mid-section, which adds a clever dynamic energy to the track. Already teased in HI-LO’s sets, and widely supported by the underground’s finest including Beyer, Amelie Lens, Enrico Sangiuliano, ANNA, and many more, ‘Wanna Go Bang’ is set to dominate clubs worldwide. Included in the pack, ‘LOKOMOTIF’ is five minutes of pure machine funk as HI-LO crafts a fantastic little groover driven by 90s house synths stabs. The track which has been in the works for the past two years has been teased in HI-LO’s sets over the summer, also garnering support from Carl Cox. On both tracks, Oliver Heldens says “‘WANNA GO BANG’ is my take on Chicago legend DJ Deeon’s classic vocoder vocal sample (from his 1992 song “2 B Free”, but it’s pitched down 5 semitones now which gives it such a dark vibe). I’ve always wanted to make my own DJ weapon version of it since I heard Bjarki’s trippy version in 2015, and I’m really happy with how it turned out, it’s such a monster! “LOKOMOTIF” is a high-energy groover, driven by 90s House synth stabs, funky percussion and banging drums, and it sits very nicely in between Techno and House. Both are really ‘dance floor’ focused, so I’m very pleased that many noteworthy DJs have been banging out these tracks in their sets already pre-release. And I couldn’t be happier than to see them released on one of my all-time favorite labels, Drumcode!”

Warehouse find!

While the German producer Martin Matiske averages a new release under his given name every few years, there was a long stretch of time in which sightings of his Blackploid alias were much more rare. After dropping an EP for Frustrated Funk in 2006, fans found further material hard to come by over the next decade or so. However, Matiske has reinvigorated Blackploid in recent times, with the project making a few compilation appearances and dropping a couple of EPs across 2020.

That run now culminates inCosmic Traveler, a four-track affair which marks Matiske's debut appearance on Sheffield's Central Processing Unit. Given the long wait, it's great just to see Blackploid back among the fray once again. But for the project's CPU curtain-raiser to be an EP of such high-quality techno jams? Now that really is spoiling us.

Cosmic Traveler's title nods towards the sort of stargazing aesthetics one finds in classic Detroit techno. However, while there are undoubtedly ties to the Motor City in this music, the record ultimately steers less towards spacious atmospherics and more towards the taut, lean machine-funk of seminal practitioners like Dopplereffekt.

Matiske sets his stall out from the off. Opener 'Electric Engine' begins with a run of stiff-necked 808 kicks before hissing hi-hats, a grizzly bassline and all manner of futuristic sounds enter to warp the tune into hyperspace. Following cut 'Night Drive' repeats the trick of 'Electric Engine' but adds a pleasingly dinky synth lead in order to nudge itself slightly towards bleep-techno territory.

The two cuts on Cosmic Traveler's B-side are pure late-night goodness, a pair of mid-set heaters primed for dark basements. 'Pleasure Activism' delivers on the promise of its title and then some, pushing the Kraftwerk template to extremes by bringing a load of gnarly synth lines into play over a wobbling acidic chug. Finally, EP closer 'The Race' is reminiscent of both the twisted machine-funk of Gerald Donald's Japanese Telecom project and the playful modern evolutions of artists like fellow CPU high-flyer Jensen Interceptor.

The resurgence of Martin Matiske's Blackploid project continues withCosmic Traveller, an EP of timeless electro-funk and techno.

FFO: Dopplereffekt, Japanese Telecom, Jensen Interceptor, Cardopusher

Creeping through an imaginary border, sidesteppin’ through the night like cyber phantoms eavesdropping on early morning machinery shifts, an industrial solstice for pagan mystics. After five years Torino’s mysterious SabaSaba are back with ‘Unknown City’ an imaginary soundtrack for a dystopian city: digital raga, horror Exotica, half-speed techno, metallic dub and organic electronics.

The duo of Andrea Marini (synth, guitar, electronics, tapes) and Gabriele Maggiorotto (drums, percussion, effects, programming) return with their most political manifesto yet, an intricate musical essay inspired by China Miéville’s novel ‘The City And The City’, examining border control, repression, an unknown city where people move like ghosts without personality and without communicating, monitored on sight by the authorities. SabaSaba’s personal OST is a whirlwind of analog and digital instruments colliding, textured samples, syncopated drums and spiritual synth sweeps often heightened by Ambra Chiara Michelangeli’s eerie viola playing, an ancestral force resisting under a cement tower, modulars gasping for air, endlessly reverberating into noir-soul and gray landscapes.

Like Miéville’s two imaginary cities Ul Qoma e Besźel, SabaSaba’s journey is cavernous, claustrophobic at times, but a clear sense of evasion and resistance breaks through, small flickers of light, like a cyborg calibrating himself - the hypnotic dub ambient of ‘False Speech’ - for an ecstatic liberation - the trance inducing ‘Wrists Free’ featuring UK industrial techno duo Jerome. ‘Ul Qoma’ unites

Currently celebrating ten years of releasing music on vinyl & cassette and following hype for recent releases from Moscow (via Tallinn)’s Galun (glagol album) and Osaka's Kiji Suedo (Hosek EP & Riot album), Edinburgh's Hobbes Music label continues to mine a leftfield seam with this brand new album from singer/songwriter George Demure (Tirk, Output) aka DJ/producer George T (Greco Roman, Optimo), better known as George Thomson to his mum. And it’s another absolute peach if you have a taste for post-club sounds of a more leftfield persuasion.

This is the follow-up to his 'The Record Store' EP which came out via George's own All Noise imprint in 2021. He has also released the Roll On, King's Cross single via Hobbes Music under his George T moniker last November (plus various bits for the Paradise Palms and Ramrock labels in the interim).

“It all began with the Record Store EP in 2021,” explains George. “Limit my options. No samples, one drum machine, two analog synths (mono and poly), computer simply to record. I was so happy with the results I began with what you hear today. Same drums, same machines (or lack thereof) maybe some real percussion and melodica but hey, I only answer to me.”

Imagine, if you will, Scott Walker jamming with Kruder & Dorfmeister in a very small studio…

Bonus Album ‘Dandy In Dub’ features dubs, instrumentals and bonus tracks, with yet more regular flashes of pure brilliance. Be sure to check out opener 'After' and closer 'Blue Lou', which sound like George might well have sound-tracked some French 80s flick of the 'cinema du look' period (Betty Blue, Diva et al) in another life. Plus ‘Mr Minilogue’ with its clarinet-like synth.... Does it really get any better than this?!!

Sleeve art by the amazingly talented Bernie Reid, another local legend.

Feedback/Reviews to date:

'He's so talented!' JD TWITCH (Optimo)
'Love the LP. Sounds really together, production is awesome. I love the aesthetic. Vocal tracks sit nicely with instrumentals. Vocals sound light-hearted' THE MAGHREBAN
"On a bobbled and float-y, light sunbeam dappled vapor of deep house, garage, electro, kosmische, leftfield pop electronica, dub and new wave (both the German and UK’s), the Edinburgh DJ/producer and singer-songwriter George Thomson continues the good work he laid down on the last EP... It’s a most lovely, swimmingly blend of motivations, feels and deep grooves that effortlessly comes together in a generous offering of electronic music: the very epitome of the Hobbes label’s remit in delivering leftfield unique visions of now techno, house and club sounds." MONOLITH COCKTAIL
‘I love the album’ LEO MAS
‘Lovely stuff’ S/A/M (Music For Dreams/DK, Cafe Del Mar, Pikes, Playasol Radio and many more, Ibiza)
Plus play/s from Andy Wilson on ‘Balearia’ Ibiza Sonica Radio
+ DJ Dribbler (Pikes, Ibiza // Paradise Lost, Red Light Radio, Pure)

yellow vinyl / incl. dl codes

Modern techno is fast-paced and borrows elements from mid 90s trance records. This record is not that.